My initial thoughts after the trade announcement were that I couldn't remember the last time Treliving seemingly lost a deal so badly in my own immediate reaction.
It's a fair point brought up by some that Lucic in the bottom 6 is much better than Neal in the bottom 6. I personally would not read into any of the comments from the players given to the media regarding the acquisition of Lucic. Some poster noted that Johnny called Lucic, which is surprising to me given I don't believe they have a relationship, which makes this piece interesting, if true.
As far as the NMC goes, some are finding it hard to believe that Lucic would NOT waive to go to Seattle and bringing up the valid point that Lucic after all, did waive his NMC to come to Calgary. I think almost every player would waive to leave the Oilers given their lack of success over the last many, many seasons. If we see the Flames remain in the top of the league (I do, for the next 4-5 years) and win a cup as well in the next two seasons, that's reason enough for Lucic to want to stay here over going to Seattle just to be 15 or so minutes faster in a flight to Vancouver. Most expansion teams are not like Vegas and assuming Seattle will be competing for the top 3 seeds in the Pacific division would be a poor assumption.
I'm excited for the season to start to see how each player turns out.
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